Miriam Teresa Demjanovich

          The life story of Miriam Teresa Demjanovich is filled with fascinating details – life in two rites of the Catholic Church, visions of Jesus and St. Therese of Lisieux, a profound understanding of the universal call to holiness – and seems only possible in a place like the United States.

         Teresa Demjanovich was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the seventh child of Ruthenian immigrants to the United States.  Her family was part of the Ruthenian Byzantine Rite, one of the Eastern Catholic Churches.  She received the Sacraments of Baptism, Christmation and First Holy Communion in the Byzantine Church, and was shaped by its spirituality.  From her youth, Teresa wanted to devote her life to God and recalled her parents’ home as a place devoted to holy things.  After completing high school, she planned to join the Carmelite order and follow in the footsteps of St. Therese of Lisieux, to whom she had a special devotion.  But her mother was sick and Teresa stayed home to care for her until her death in November of 1918.

         At her family’s prompting, Teresa enrolled in the College of St. Elizabeth at Convent Station, New Jersey, run by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s order the Sisters of Charity.  She studied literature and graduated with honors.  Teresa still longed to enter religious life but was no longer certain what would be the best community for her.  She took a teaching assignment at a nearby academy and became an active participant in her parish.  In 1924, she visited the Carmelites to discern with them again, but was told to wait entering due to some health challenges.  With her degree and teaching training, her family suggested considering a teaching order.  Commiting the question to prayer through a novena leading up to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Teresa concluded it was God’s will that she enter the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, a Byzantine Catholic to become a sister in a Latin-rite order.  Delayed by her father’s death, she entered the novitiate on May 17, 1925, the day of St. Therese of Lisieux’s canonization.  She took the name Sister Miriam Teresa to honor St. Therese, the Blessed Mother and Saint Theresa of Avila.

         Although only in her 20s, Demjanovich’s wisdom and piety did not go unnoticed.  While still a novice, her spiritual director, Fr. Bradley, asked her to write a series of conferences for him to present to the novitiate.  He did not reveal that the conferences were written by Sister Miriam Teresa until after her death.  The 26 conferences have been published as the book, Greater Perfection, and they speak of how to pursue union with God through prayer in a manner that foreshadowed what Vatican II would later describe as the universal call to holiness.

         In many ways, Sister Miriam Teresa’s life was very ordinary, hidden from the world, but no less capable of affecting and transforming it for Christ just like the Little Way of St. Therese.  But it is also reported she received special favors like the Blessed Mother appearing to her when she was a college student and St. Therese walking with her during her novitiate.  Her failing health limited her time with the Sisters of Charity.  In November of 1926, she became very ill, thought to be suffering from exhaustion, myocarditis and acute appendicitis.  With special permission, Demjanovich made her permanent religious vows on April 2, 1927, doctors concerned she was near her end and might not survive any operation.  They operated on her for appendicitis on May 6, 1927.  She died two days later.

         Miriam Teresa Demjanovich was beatified in 2014 at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey.  She was the first American to be beatified on United States’ soil.  Her beatification was made possible by the approval in 2013 of a miracle attributed to her intercession involving a boy, Michael Mencer, who had gone blind due to macular degeneration, having his sight perfectly restored.  He had been given a relic - a lock of hair - of Sister Demjanovich to take home to his family and to pray for her aid.  His sight began to return as he carried the relic home.  The day after her beatification, Bishop Burnette of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic celebrated the Divine Liturgy in her memory at her childhood parish in Bayonne, New Jersey.

         Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich is entombed in the Holy Family Chapel of the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth at their motherhouse in Convent Station. New Jersey,  and near what is now known as St. Elizabeth University, a college operated by the sisters and of which Blessed Demjanovich is a graduate.  The chapel is open for Masses each day, but visitors should contact the Sisters of Charity to confirm the ability to venerate Blessed Demjanovich at her tomb.  The first parish named after her was established in 2016 in Bayonne, New Jersey.